Jennifer Leigh Harrison is Trying to Tell You Something About Femicide [Part 2]

***Continued from Part 1.

CW: Mentions of violence, rape

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Jennifer Leigh Harrison (JLH): People walking in off the streets during the opening were saying, “I had no idea that it was this many.”, “I had no idea that we had this problem.” So it went from me trying to cope with my anger and sadness around this to profoundly connecting this to systems (of oppression). What’s happening to people who are undocumented, systemic racism. It’s all connected. So I created these QR codes to give people something more.

You can’t cover everything on these walls, and I wanted it to be educational to some degree. I wanted to highlight some of the bigger issues, but also felt really challenged at not wanting to overwhelm people. It’s unusual to have this much text in a gallery like this. But if you just walk in, like many people did, it’s abstract art. They took it in, they liked it, and thought it was bold, and that’s what they took from it, which is fine.

Street view of Harrison’s show at CoCA, by Films About Artists

Courtesy of Jennifer Leigh Harrison

I think that is representational of our society right now at the surface level. People are completely unaware of IPV [Intimate Partner Violence], and I felt that being reenacted in the gallery on opening night. But the QR codes are there to provide more information for someone who wants to know more. They point to IPV in the context of various communities like the military, Black, Asian, Latina communities, people with disabilities, teens, immigrants and refugees, LGBTQ populations.

There is also some information on the attachment between child coercion and the things that happen between mother and child during long periods of IPV. One of the things that we’ve seen in studies is that children obviously don’t do well in these situations. What they have shown is that when the mother gets well emotionally, the child gets well, even if not necessarily everything changes in the environment. So supporting the mother is a huge impact.

Each one of these QR codes is my way of really throwing the flag up that there is a real importance to being culturally sensitive around how we are providing care to people. There is a lot of stereotype and discrimination that happens, in the legal sector as well as other areas that we like to think aren’t happening. Assumptions made about people. And some of this is around important elements that come into focus as to why people don’t leave.

68 Entry Points, 2025 (detail). Wax, Oil, Acrylic on wood.

Courtesy of Jennifer Leigh Harrison

The show features several large, abstract canvases such as 68 Entry Points, 2025—where Harrison has covered a previously crafted image, leaving only glimpses of the original work through bullet holes—that visualizes the number of recorded Canadian femicides in 2021, taking a conceptual approach to convey grim statistics.

JLH: This piece right here [points to 68 Entry Points, 2025]. The entry points are the different bullet holes, from different guns that would be used to create those size holes. It’s kind of irrelevant, but these are taken to be typical guns used in IPV. And one of the things that we start to talk about is women not leaving because leaving often results in homelessness or worse. You can’t just give someone a resource on IPV to educate them on why it’s not good for them to be there. They need resources in order to leave.

And I have witnessed my loved one, she finally got the courage to go, her doctor had written up a child abuse report, and the Department of Children and Families got involved, then the court system got involved. The judge gave the father six hours of anger management, finished in two weeks. They had a protection order in place, which was written off after he finished the six hours of anger management, and they never took his guns away. So she was right back where she started, after spending thousands of dollars, and was financially ruined by repeated incidents of this. And the father is unwilling to release custody. So there's this huge, impossible situation and that is a privileged situation, which is the crazy thing.

[This show] is sort of like confirmation. And I think that’s been an experience for people. I’m also a Survivor. The experience of people coming in and asking, “Does this agree with me or not?”, and me feeling concerned and sensitive about how this feels for Survivors, because, again, the framing is not around Survivor experience. It’s around the document, the lack of documentation, and the protest around our systems of power that are definitely not serving. So almost an archival protest. The programming needed to be more of a deepening of conversations around survivors and their experiences.

As a social worker who went to Smith College, a lot of our focus was on anti-racism approaches. It became clear to me that okay, fine, I can have this show, but there needs to be way more going on. It’s okay if I create my expression and talk about where this is coming from for me, but to make it inclusive has been a process of talking to a lot of different organizations.

I'm Trying to Tell You Something performers (The Artist with Seattle Pole Dance: Amber Kegley, Ariel George, Rachael Peterson), 2025.

Courtesy of Jennifer Leigh Harrison

Although the show appears minimal with fewer than ten pieces on display, I’m Trying to Tell You Something has hidden depths that go beyond the visual. Harrison has partnered with API Chaya, Tanisha Medina, LMHC, Fauzia Ameeri of Refugee Women's Alliance (ReWA), Kye Robinson, Deputy Director of Our Sisters’ House, Nichelle Anderson, FNTP, LICSW, of iNfinitely Well, Patrick Martin of Lifewire, and Amanda Freeman of Ampkwa Advocacy, to create a series of free community events. These include a workshop for IPV community training (Saturday, May 24), a panelist discussion entitled Awareness, Hope and Culturally Responsive Dialogue (June 2 and 3), and a Juneteenth Survivor art show. Harrison has also recently partnered with Prayaas Charitable Trust, an Indian Non-governmental (NGO) non-profit to present a webinar (June 11) titled Visualizing Loss, Inspiring Our Future.

By connecting with a coalition of communities and resources dedicated to combating the effects of domestic violence and uplifting women from a variety of backgrounds, Harrison has created a dynamic show that goes beyond visual impact, and by extending perspectives through programming, has the potential to inspire significant change in how we view and deal with Intimate Partner Violence.

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 I’m Trying to Tell You Something: Breaking the Silence of Femicide Through Visual Art is on view through June 21, 2025, at Center on Contemporary Art.